The charm of traditional Chinese culture emanating from Tang poems is jumping out of the Confucian cultural circle of East Asia and following the silk road trajectory of the westward transmission to the world.
Source: China News Service (CNS1952)
Author: Mao Zhiwen Ph.D., Shanghai Overseas Chinese University, teacher of Wuhan University, member of China Translators Association
All characters: 3109
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
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Editor's Note:
Modern linguistics holds that language can be divided into two parts, namely the symbol (form) as a "signifier" and the meaning (content) as the "signifier". In terms of form, translation is the transformation of symbols, such as speech and word (word) form; in terms of content, it contains knowledge and the cultural background and ideological system behind knowledge. Practice shows that translation is not simply to change "ABCD" to "ABCD", and exploring the culture and exchange of ideas behind the transformation of symbols is undoubtedly a key issue for more academic rationality.
"East and West Question" recently launched a series of articles on "Translator's Words", interviewees include both first-line translators and scholars who pay attention to translation, and the topics involve the form, knowledge, culture and ideology of translation: Why is Du Fu popular in Russia? How is the Divine Comedy translated as a "dead sentence"? Why is there a version of "Journey to the West" that only translates the three difficulties? How does the "Shaanxi flavor" of lamb steamed bun "mean" into the British context? Walking on the east-west cultural beach rushed out of the "translation of words and translations", I hope that readers will follow these questions to find their own eye-catching shells.
"Nine days opened the palace, and all nations dressed in crowns and crowned." During the Tang Dynasty, China's economy was prosperous, socially stable, frequent foreign exchanges, free and unrestrained thinking, and near-body poetry gradually developed and improved, becoming the peak and model of ancient Chinese literature. As a landmark achievement of traditional Chinese culture, how effective is the translation and dissemination of Tang poems to foreign countries?
In September 2021, the Forest 5D All-Media Immersion Illusion Light and Shadow Show "Blossom Shutang Mountain, Light and Shadow Poetry calligraphy and painting" premiered in Changsha Shutang Mountain, and the actors recited Li Bai's "Will Enter the Wine". Photo by Yang Huafeng, a reporter of China News Service
How does the bright color of the pearl spread?
The great poets of the Tang Dynasty emerged in an endless stream, and a hundred flowers blossomed. The early Tang Dynasty was started by SiJie and Chen Ziang; the sheng tang emerged two peaks, Li Bai and Du Fu, as well as the pastoral poets Meng Haoran and Wang Wei, and the biansai poets Gao Shi and Cen Shan, and so on; the Middle Tang Dynasty had Yuanbai "XinleFu" and Han Mengshi school; and the late Tang Dynasty Du Mu and Li Shangyin added a bright finish.
These great poets and works are undoubtedly the shining pearls of traditional Chinese culture. Its outward propagation trajectory is roughly two: one is the eastward transmission, which has a particularly deep and extensive impact on the eastern neighbors of South Korea and Japan. The other path is westward, roughly coinciding with the overland Silk Road in the Belt and Road Initiative, with Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia as important nodes.
The translation and dissemination of Tang poetry in Russia has gone through four periods: the embryonic period (late 19th century), the development period (the first half of the 20th century), the climax period (1950s-60s), and the new period (1990s to the present).
What was the first Tang poem translated from Russian?
At the end of the 19th century, Russian academic and cultural circles began to pay attention to Tang poetry. Wang Bo's Preface to the Tengwang Pavilion, published in 1874 by the printing house of the Ministry of Transport in St. Petersburg, is the first well-documented Russian translation of Tang poems, with a total of 10 pages and the translator's name. Since then, the individual works of Li Bai, Du Fu and other poets have been translated one after another, but most of them have been translated from other languages, and the translations are large and fragmented. It is worth mentioning that at that time, famous artists in the Russian poetry circles such as Balmont, Gumilev, Akhmatova and other famous artists were actively involved in the Russian translation of Tang poetry, and their creative style was greatly influenced by Tang poetry.
In August 2014, the 48-meter-long "Preface to the Tengwang Pavilion" cursive calligraphy hand scroll was unveiled in the scenic spot of the famous Building tengwang pavilion in Jiangnan. Photo by Liu Zhankun, a reporter from China News Service
The 1920s and 1930s were a period of rapid development in the translation of Tang poetry into Russia. In 1920, the famous Soviet sinologist Academician Alexiev proposed a grand plan for the translation of Masterpieces of Chinese Literature, and began to systematically translate the works of Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei, Bai Juyi and others, which can be called a landmark event. Later, his student Hutzky inherited the mantle and translated it in the form of a collection of Tang poems. Both teachers and students are proficient in Chinese, translating word by word from Chinese, and the semantic content of the poem is conveyed very accurately, and the work is neat and the words are appropriate, which well retains the rhyme and rhythm of the original poem. These laid the foundation for the later large-scale translation of Tang poetry.
Why was Du Fu popular in the Soviet Union?
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Russian translation of Tang poetry entered a prosperous period. This is not only due to the continuous accumulation of previous generations of sinologists and the improvement of translation level; it is also related to the background of the "honeymoon period" between China and the Soviet Union at that time. Under the strong atmosphere of sinology, Soviet sinologists completed the systematic translation of the works of most famous poets of the Tang Dynasty, and the study of Tang poetry was also in full swing.
At this time, there was also a grand situation of joint translation by Chinese and Russian poets. For example, in 1957, Guo Moruo and Federlin jointly translated the "Chinese Tang Dynasty Poetry Collection". Published by the Moscow State Literary Publishing House, the collection was widely circulated in the Soviet Union, with nearly 40,000 copies first distributed. Due to the high quality of the translation, the translation was reprinted in one edition and the supply exceeded demand.
During this period, as one of the series of books "Biographies of World Celebrities" founded by Gorky, the "Biography of Du Fu" published by the famous Soviet sinologist Bieren was originally planned to be published in 15,000 copies, but it was unexpectedly sold out and had to be reprinted. Du Fu's realist poetry was very popular in the Soviet Union, because the ideas of worrying about the country and the people and sympathizing with the sufferings of the people in the poems easily resonated with the local people who had experienced vicissitudes.
In August 2021, the drama "Du Fu" opened a new round of performances in Beijing, and the image of Du Fu in the play jumped on the paper. Photo by Shi Chunyang, a reporter from China News Service
"Poetry by poetry": adjacent rhymes, enveloping rhymes and interlaced rhymes
Since the 1990s, Tang poetry has given new life in Russia. After the normalization of Sino-Soviet relations, the Russian translation of Tang poetry in the new era showed two major characteristics: one is that the translation methods of Tang poetry are constantly innovating, and the other is that contemporary sinologists have carried out innovative research on Tang poetry from different perspectives. For example, the famous sinologist Menglev inherited the tradition of "translating poetry by poetry" by Alekseyev and Gidovich, paying special attention to reproducing the rhyme foot of the poem, and trying to reproduce the rhyme foot of Tang poetry with the adjacent rhyme, the ring rhyme and the interlaced rhyme in The Russian language. He also used the complete and incomplete steps of the Russian language to restore the "Ping Shu", trying to reproduce the unique phenomena of double sounds, overlapping rhymes, confrontations, and transpositions unique to Chinese poetry. These are innovative breakthroughs for predecessors. It can be said that Menglev's translation of Tang poems not only achieved sindaya, but also achieved both form and god.
Notable Tang poets also include Azarova of the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. She is deeply influenced by the Western translation theory and cultural school, believing that the purpose of translation is cultural transformation, and is more bold and innovative in the translation method of Tang poetry. She creatively conducted translation experiments and organized nine contemporary Russian sinologists, including Aristov, Galina, and Yelmakova, to translate Du Fu's "Spring Hope" and "Wangyue" with her. Nine translations in one article, unprecedented. She also managed to reduce the total number of words during the translation process, increase the semantic capacity of words, and emphasized the visualization of poetic texts, believing that lines, word counts, punctuation, length and position of accents all affect the shape and rhythm of the text.
Du Fu's calligraphy work of Wangyue. Photo by Zhong Xin, China News Service
Azarova also believes that the Russian translation of Tang poetry can show the potential of Russian to express hieroglyphic thinking, and russian readers who want to develop this hieroglyphic thinking cannot regard the hieroglyphic system of Chinese poetry as an object of conquest and manipulation, but should understand it as a language system for equal cultural exchange. Azarova paid full respect to the Chinese language and script during the translation process and recognized the profound influence of the translation of Chinese poetry on the thinking of modern Russian and Russian readers. Limited to space, we can only introduce these two most representative translators, glimpse the whole leopard, the world influence of traditional Chinese culture continues to expand, and the translation and study of Tang poetry has gradually become a prominent study in Russia.
Why did Li Bai's poetry promote the study of the Tao Te Ching in Russia?
Tang poetry studies interact positively with Russian literary and sinological studies. For example, the social critical perspective commonly used by traditional Soviet literary genres has also been applied to the study of Du Fu's poetry. The sinologist Seribryakov deeply studied the reality and popularity of Du Fu's poetry and believed that Du Fu was the founder of the tang dynasty poetry social school. These studies, in turn, advanced the development of Soviet realist literature and translation studies.
For example, modern and contemporary Russian sinologists attach great importance to the study of religious thought in Tang poetry. The sinologist Dagdanov deeply studied the Zen Buddha thought in the poems of Wang Wei, Meng Haoran, and Bai Juyi, which was popular in the Russian sinology circles for a while. Under this influence, the works of many Zen Buddhist poets were translated more in Russia, such as Hanshan poems and Wang Fanzhi poems.
In particular, MengLev's translation of Wang Fanzhi's poems revived the Dunhuang literature that had been sleeping in St. Petersburg after the disaster, and promoted the research and development of Dunhuang studies in Russia. Similarly, the study of the Taoist elements in Li Bai's poems by Russian Tang poets has also aroused the interest of Russian sinologists in the study of Chinese Taoism, and promoted the translation and study of the Tao Te Ching in Russia. Russian sinology collided with Chinese Tang poetry to create a spark of wisdom.
In August 2014, in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, a visitor was admiring the entire volume of the World's largest calligraphy work, the Tao Te Ching. Photo by Anton
The influence of Tang poetry is breaking through the Confucian cultural circle
From the Russian academic circles to the general public, they were positively influenced by Tang poetry.
The study of Tang poetry by Russian sinologists is often unique and refreshing. For example, in the 1970s, the famous Russian sinologist Conrad proposed from the perspective of comparative Chinese and Western cultures that the "Chinese Renaissance" appeared in the Tang Dynasty, and the attention to human personality was enhanced in the Tang Dynasty. "Since man lives in a world full of humanity, literature, art, and philosophy should all serve man himself. This is consistent with the 'humanism' advocated by the Western Renaissance. "The developed printing industry and a large number of books in the Tang Dynasty accelerated the spread of humanistic thought, so a large number of realist poets in the Tang Dynasty, represented by Du Fu, Bai Juyi, Du Mu, etc., paid more attention to the future and destiny of the toiling people and the motherland. As an Orientalist, Conrad rejected the Western-centrist view and viewed the Poets and poetry of the Tang Dynasty from an equal perspective, which deeply influenced the study of Sinology in Russia today, as exemplified by the contemporary translator Azarova mentioned earlier.
At the level of ordinary Russian people, taking Du Fu's poetry as an example, the patriotism, love of peace, concern for the suffering of ordinary people, attention to human morality and benevolence expressed in the poems have been welcomed and recited across the barriers of time and space and national limitations. The wide dissemination and acceptance of Tang poems among Russian researchers and ordinary people shows that traditional Chinese thought and culture have a great appeal to contemporary Russians. The charm of traditional Chinese culture emanating from Tang poems is jumping out of the Confucian cultural circle of East Asia and following the silk road trajectory of the westward transmission to the world.
About the Author:
Mao Zhiwen, born in 1983, is a young poet, scholar, translator, Ph.D. of Shanghai Chinese University, postdoctoral fellow in foreign Chinese and literature at Wuhan University, member of the Chinese Translators Association, and currently teaches at the Russian Department of the School of Foreign Chinese And Literature of Wuhan University. He was a visiting scholar at the Department of Philology of St. Petersburg State University in Russia (2016-2017) with a scholarship from the Chinese and Russian governments, and his research interests are poetics, translation studies, and The translation of Tang poetry into Russia. He has presided over the General Project of the National Social Science Foundation "Research on the Translation, Dissemination and Influence of Tang Poems in Russia", the Hubei Provincial Social Science Foundation Youth Project "Structural Poetics and Poetry Translation", the Wuhan University Humanities and Social Science Foundation Project 3 projects and the 14th Planning Project. He has published a monograph entitled "Research on the Translation of Russian-Chinese Poetry from the Perspective of Structural Poetics" (China Social Science Press, 2016), compiled 2 textbooks, compiled 1 dictionary, and published more than 10 papers related to poetry translation in CSSCI core journals such as Chinese Translation, Shanghai Translation, Theory and Practice of Foreign Language Teaching, and Chinese Russian Teaching.
Original title: "Something Asks: Translator's Words | Mao Zhiwen: What kind of influence did Tang Shishi have on Russia? 》
Editor: Zeng Xiaowei
Editor-in-charge: Li Mingyang
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